Gaia works in her family funeral home and takes care of the bodies while the soul is leaving. But one day, something unexpected happens.
To prepare CORPO E ARIA, I used the help of several funeral agencies that allowed me to assist from the truth to the tanatoestetico ritual. I was their apprentice for a few weeks. With the leading actress, Selene Caramazza, we attended several preparations.
The study of the lifeless human body was first a shock, then a peaceful coexistence, which oriented history and work with the actors.
With Daniele Ciprì we chose the warm light to tell the deceased, the cold light to tell everything that is outside. Warm for the realism of death and cold to light the light of the imagination.
Techno music characterizes Gaia’s character, not only because it gives her an identity: it is sensory what brings us closer to her contact with death.
Despite the pounding rhythm and the estranging sounds, I am fascinated by the meditative state in which this kind of music manages to put you. In the second part of the film the sound is emptied, the music emerges from the background sound. The sound is in fact the most laborious part of the film: the words are the sighs and silences.
The Director
Of Sicilian origins, Cristian Patanè, born in 1991, debuted in 2009, at the age of 17, with the short film 35mm “The White Nights”, freely taken from the novel by F. Dostoevsky, winning numerous awards in the festivals of the sector in Italy and at the’ abroad. In 2010 he was selected by the Ministry of Youth as “representative of young Italian excellences in the world”. Over the years he has made short films, commercials and institutional documentaries.
In 2013 he founded his first start-up, Giffoni Idea, in collaboration with Giffoni Innovation Hub, and then opened, in 2015, his production company, Bridgefilm. In 2016 he became personal assistant to Piero Messina, who became his mentor. He is still writing about his debut for the cinema with Andrea Paolo Massara.
Corpo e Aria is his fourth short film.